


they are fleeting

by call-me-cee (cls1606)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: BAMF Beru Whitesun, BAMF Shmi Skywalker, Childbirth, Chronal Disassociation, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dehydration, Developing Friendships, Gen, NO Immaculate Conception we do not drink that KoolAid on this boat, Non-Sexual Slavery, Poverty, Prostitution, Regret, Self-Hatred, Starvation, Threat of forced abortion, Women helping Women
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:07:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28680819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cls1606/pseuds/call-me-cee
Summary: Shmi breathes in red dust and waits for sunrise.
Relationships: Shmi Skywalker & Beru Whitesun
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	they are fleeting

**Author's Note:**

> (for my mother)
> 
> They are fleeting.  
> They are fragile.  
> They require
> 
> little water.  
> They’ll surprise you.  
> They’ll remind you
> 
> that they aren’t  
> and they are you.
> 
> \---  
> "Flowers" by Wendy Videlock

# Prologue

_Push_ , Beru signs, kneeling at Shmi’s feet. Shmi readjusts her grip on the cave wall and focuses her energy _down down down_. Her robe is long since discarded and her shorn hair is dark with sweat. She takes a long, shaky breath as the contraction eases. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In, out. In. Out. 

Beru holds one of the many canteens they’d brought to Shmi’s lips, and she tilts her head back and drinks gratefully, keeping her hands on the rough stone wall. It has already been 3 hours, but there is no choice but to keep going. Not if she wants her children to live. And they _must_ live. There is very little Shmi is sure about any more, but that thought - that imperative to _survive survive survive_ \- had kept her moving forward for 8 torturous months. She will see this to the end, even if it kills her. 

_Alright?_ Beru asks. Shmi nods tiredly but doesn’t dare move her hands to respond more eloquently. She might fall over if she tries. 

It’s ironic, she thinks, that the reason she’s out here giving birth in the desert like a womp rat is to give her children a chance to live. 

* * *

Everyone she ever loved has died in the dust. Her parents. Her sister. Her nieces and nephews. Shmi hated the dust and the sand and the drudgery of her life for as long as she could remember. Once the moisture farm failed it was only a matter of time before starvation and dehydration set in, and Shmi needed no other excuse to flee. Unfortunately there are only a few ways a young farm girl with no established trade can make money on Tatooine. There was no Whore’s Guild in the nearest town but Shmi figured that just meant that she had a monopoly and no fees to pay. 

* * *

She lets out an amused huff. What a foolish young idiot she was. 

_Spread your legs wider_ , Beru signs. Shmi musters enough energy to inch her feet past shoulder-width, but has to stop to pant frantically at the wave of pain the movement sends up her spine. 

Beru apparently decides that’s wide enough and spreads the towel on the ground between her feet. Shmi isn’t sure why they care about protecting the cave floor; then she realizes that it’s not about the floor. 

Another wave hits. 

* * *

It wasn’t long before she discovered that the reason there were no Guilds in the settlement was because there was no real money, and while she soon accumulated what amounted to wealth in that gritty corner of the world, she also collected the resentments of every family whose earnings moved from their patriarchs’ hands into hers. So when she ended up pregnant - at that point there was no one willing to help.

If it had just been Shmi, well, that would’ve been fine. One thing farm life _did_ teach her was gritty perseverance. But. Babies require so much. And they can’t help what they need. So three months into her pregnancy Shmi found herself walking into a Mos Eisley cantina and doing what she promised herself she would never resort to. At least this time she wasn’t chained to the land. And she made the choice herself. _She_ made the choice. She _owns_ that choice. 

That’s all she owns, now. 

* * *

She can feel Beru’s hands on her, checking the movement of the children as they steadily struggle to make their way out of their mother. The pain changes but it’s always there, radiating from her core to every nerve ending in her body. She breathes through another massive contraction and somehow finds the energy to move her hand from the cave wall and sign, _Thank you_ to the mere slip of a girl who’s much too young to know how to birth babies. The smile she receives in return is tight and stressed but genuine. Beru is the only one who can be here. Shmi has no choice but to trust her. She’s surprised to find that she already does. 

* * *

Watto was willing to buy 20 years of her labor and her child’s, but when she grew much larger than any of the other pregnant women she’d seen, Shmi decided to use one of her few legally mandated privileges to have a midwife come to the house (at Watto’s expense, of course, as part of the contract). The midwife brought her apprentice, a tiny blue-eyed child who couldn’t have been more than ten years old but met Shmi’s eyes calmly as she explained that the midwife was mute and they would be using Sign to communicate. 

“Do you know how to Sign?” The girl asked without pretense. Only a child could be so matter of fact about effectively asking if Shmi was raised as a slave or would need an interpreter. When Shmi responded that she did not, Blue-eyes nodded and said, “I will teach you. My name is Beru.” And that was that.

In retrospect it was a fortunate thing, having to communicate silently. Because when the midwife paused with her hands on Shmi’s stomach and raised her eyes to Shmi’s, overflowing with pity, Shmi was suddenly grateful that the thin walls would not betray whatever knowledge the midwife was about to impart. 

The midwife raised two fingers. 

* * *

_Push_ , Beru signs. She’s crouched at Shmi’s feet, ready to catch. 

* * *

_I will help you_ , Beru signed one day. They had to work around Shmi and Beru’s work schedules, but the two of them had been able to meet at least every two days for Sign lessons, a necessity for Shmi’s new life but - surprisingly - a welcome respite from the mindless toil of her days. 

_Why_ , Shmi asked. Beru owed her nothing. 

Beru gazed at her silently across the small kitchen table. Shmi tried to meet her steady blue eyes, but her nerves failed her and she looked down at her clasped hands, swallowing. If she’d been more alert, less pregnancy-brained, less…all of it, she would’ve asked _With what?_ instead. But now Beru knew for sure that Shmi was going to crawl off like an animal to have her children. To _save_ her children. 

Watto had only paid for one child. And if he knew there were two, an unexpected additional expense not covered in their contract…he would be well within his legal rights to demand a selective abortion. Shmi would legally be required to comply. 

She would _not_. 

* * *

_NOW_ Beru signs frantically. 

Shmi pounds her forehead into the cave wall and bites her tongue with her efforts to stay silent. She tastes bitter blood as her body screams at her. 

Pain.

_Pain_

**_PAIN_ **

* * *

Shmi knew the laws. There were few enough but they were ironclad, backed by Hutt power. Once the babies were out of her they had rights. Not freedom - there were no free children to slave mothers on Tatooine - but until their fifth year of life, the age of working majority, she would be able to care for them both. She just had to make sure no one bothered her until the cords were cut. 

The midwife would lose her livelihood if they found her helping a slave cheat a contract, so Shmi had fully expected to do this on her own, with whatever supplies she could think to grab when the time came. When Beru showed up at the cave they’d chosen with towels, canteens, and a lantern, Shmi was struck by her own ignorance and grateful to who- or what-ever had sent her a knowledgeable and timely friend. 

She didn’t believe in the gods. But perhaps one of them believed in her. 

* * *

With a wet _schlorp_ , the first child slides from Shmi’s heaving body. The pain isn’t gone but there is blessed relief and- 

She must lose time, because when she comes back to herself Beru is doing something, moving quickly between Shmi’s legs with towels and a knife. 

Shmi pants and trembles, fixing her gaze on a vein of copper on the wall as she waits for both a cry and new pain. 

She doesn’t wait long.

* * *

_We will have to be as quick as we can._ Beru laid the supplies down near the entrance and hauled Shmi to her feet. _Walk. Then, when you feel ready to push, undress and come stand against the wall here._

Shmi looked at her incredulously. Walk? With this much pain? 

Beru’s eyes were still calm and compassionate, but now there was chagrin too. _I am sorry. But I must be seen making the morning rounds. I don’t want to leave you alone if I don’t have to._

* * *

The child is LOUD. Beru is trying her best to clean and swaddle it after cutting the cord, but Shmi feels the second infant making its way into the world and Beru only has two hands. So the first child screams its outrage into the void, abandoned on the towel for the moment. 

Shmi knows that if they had stayed in town, Watto would have rushed in at that sound to kill her second child. These next few moments are the reason for everything. A chance at life. A chance to fight. 

The second child drops and Shmi finally cries out as the rest of the birthing fluids gush down her legs. Beru frantically catches the child and places it next to its sibling before grabbing more towels for Shmi to press against the gaping wound of her sex. 

* * *

_Have you picked names yet?_ , Beru signed as she watched Shmi walk. 

_No_ , Shmi replied curtly. _I think I’ll wait until I know they’re both going to survive._

* * *

Shmi almost knocks over the lantern as she stumbles to the wave entrance and slumps against the rock face. She slides down, naked and covered in sweat and blood, and stares out into the black night as her children cry behind her.

Beru eventually joins her, hands full with two tiny, noisy bundles. She kneels awkwardly and hands first one, then the other to Shmi and helps encourage the children to latch. It takes more time than Shmi thought it would but perhaps that is because neither of them have had any sleep. 

She looks at each of their small red faces, framed by wisps of blonde hair. “Identical?” She rasps. 

“Not quite,” Beru smiles, using the last clean towel to clean Shmi as best she can. “Your firstborn,” she touches the child at Shmi’s left breast, “is a girl. And the boy is only slightly smaller. They are both healthy, though.” 

The boy. Shmi watches him, his small features scrunched tight as if he’s concentrating hard on his meal. All this pain, all this subterfuge, all this was for him. He will live. He will live. He will live. 

Beru goes back into the cave and changes into her spare outfit. She brings the lantern back with her and stops next to Shmi. “I have to go. I’m sorry. When you’re ready, there’s a bag of rations and a canteen of water next to your robe.”

Shmi nods tiredly. “Thank you.”

Beru smiles enigmatically and watches her for a long moment but says nothing more, simply turns and makes her way down the rocky path back towards the lights of Mos Eisley. The sky is only slightly lightening. 

* * *

_“Why did you even bring them into this world?” Shmi screamed at her sister through parched lips, gesturing wildly at her nephew’s swollen belly and emaciated limbs. “Wouldn’t it have been kinder to just let them die in peace?”_

_“You don’t understand,” her sister whispered, clutching the body of her tiny daughter to her chest. She didn’t even have enough moisture left for tears, but she was crying all the same. “You’re not a mother.”_

_“And I never will be,” Shmi spat. “I won’t be anything like you. I won’t subject anyone else to this horrible life. That’s not love.”_

* * *

As her newborn children suckle at her breasts, Shmi breathes in red dust and waits for sunrise. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it to the end, thanks! Please let me know what you think.


End file.
